Come out Jan 12th for Justin Van Hoy’s “By Way of South” show opening at Guerrero Gallery in San Francisco. Justin recently passed away and this show will be a memorial of sorts for all the great work he did. As co-owner of This Gallery in Highland Park, CA Justin was able to curate an incredible community of artists, and as a designer he created some of the most memorable books and products of the last five years. Justin was kind enough to put me in his book “Milk and Honey”, and more then that was a great friend who was always really supportive. In honor of Justin we are working on an episode on his life and work that will premiere with the new season. I’ll be previewing some of the episode at the show in the project room and giving out these pennant flags for free that we made to honor Justin.

In this long and tumultuous journey to finish and release of The Creative Lives Season 2 I was approached by the Museum of Contemporary Art down here in Southern California to create a short on the artist Marquis Lewis (aka RETNA). I had a lot of fun doing it, and I think it turned out pretty well so I thought I’d share it with you all. Please take a peep and pass it along to anyone else you think might be inspired.

Also thanks again for all the support, I’ve been working hard to complete Season 2. I have 10 out of 16 episodes ready and am hoping to premiere everything by January, I’ll be sure to keep you informed. Keep making and stay positive,

“Don’t be discouraged by a failure. It can be a positive experience. Failure is, in a sense, the highway to success, inasmuch as every discovery of what is false leads us to seek earnestly after what is true, and every fresh experience points out some form of error which we shall afterwards carefully avoid.”

– John Keats (1795 – 1821)

Even though the Kickstarter campaign was unsuccessful, I just want to let all the friends and fans out there know that I have never given up hope on this series and continue to work every day toward it’s completion. That means mixing and finishing each episode by myself in my little apartment after I get home from my day job. It may take a bit longer but I promise to give these docs a proper release, and when it happens you will be the first to know. Thank you all for your encouragement and energy, and please stay tuned, good things are on the horizon.

We are finally in the home stretch of releasing these incredible documentaries but could use a little help to do it right. Through our Kickstarter campaign we are hoping to raise enough to funds to do a sound mixed and color-corrected finished version of the series and host to premiere screening events in San Francisco and Los Angeles.

Please support if you can, we have some incredible incentives including limited edition T-Shirts and Prints from artists Andrew Schoultz, Ferris Plock, Henry Gunderson, and Mark Whalen (KILL PIXIE). Also it’s a rare chance to see yours truly in front of the camera, which may or may not ever happen again. Thanks so much again for all your support, hopefully I’ll see you at the screening.

We just released a trailer for the new season of The Creative Lives which will be coming out soon.

This season we followed 16 artists for over a year collecting footage and archive materials to create a visual portrait of the artists in their element telling their stories in their own unique ways. Besides the artists already mentioned in the posts below, we decided to do a special on the British artist HUSH, because frankly he is incredible and well worth documenting, keep that a secret though.

You can only see this trailer here at our website, check it out and pass it along.

Thanks so much for everyone who sent in entries from across the states and around the world. We got entries from Japan to Lebanon, Norway to Chile, and all sorts of places in between, but there could only be one and in this case it was Tristan Rault from Buenos Aires, Argentina who was able to guess a near perfect answer.

For his efforts we will be sending Tristan a Kelsey Brookes Print and some other goodies. For everyone else here is the lineup for season 2 of The Creative Lives.

Andrew Schoultz

Cleon Peterson

Ferris Plock

Henry Gunderson

Jeremy Fish

Mike Shine

Mike Giant

RETNA (Marquis Lewis)

The Date Farmers

Taylor Mckimens

Richard Colman

KILL PIXIE (Mark Whalen)

Thomas Campbell

Tiffany Bozic

Fecal Face 10 Year Anniversary

New episodes begin airing in Spring 2012, dont forget to pay the internet bill, you’re gonna want to see what we have in store. Thanks again to everyone who participated in the contest, keep on creating, and keep on supporting creators. 2012 is going to be a great year for art, and we’ll be there with a camera.

Alright Friends and Fans, 2011 is almost upon us and so too is the second season of The Creative Lives. To celebrate the new year and the new season we have decided to give away a beautiful Kelsey Brookes print to the first person to correctly guess the artists featured in this short teaser trailer for Season 2. Here’s how it works:

Watch the trailer below, you will see two shots of each artists’ hands as they create, also you will hear sound bites of people we interviewed last season for the show. The first person to email contest@thecreativelives.com with all the names of the artists featured in all soundbites and all video clips (hint there are 11 artists soundbites, and 10 artists hands featured) will win this incredible Pictures on Walls Print by Kelsey Brookes, valued at over $300.

If no one has a perfect score by Jan 10th 2011 we will award the print to the contestant who has the most correct answers. On Jan 17th 2011 we will announce the winner. Thanks so much for an incredible year, I’m looking forward to sharing some beautiful footage with you all starting Spring 2012,

- G. Lewis Heslet

THIS JUST IN:
We have a winner! Thanks to everybody from across the US and across the world. No one got a perfect score, but Tristan Rault from Buenos Aires, Argentina had the most and has won the Kelsey Brookes print.

Over a year in the making The Creative Lives Season 2 is set to premiere in Winter 2011/2012 with the personal stories of 16 of the most interesting contemporary artists working today. Who are the painters you ask. Well stay tuned for a special teaser preview launching soon that will show close ups of some of the talented hands that will be featured next year. Guess which artists are featured and you could win a Kelsey Brookes’ print and some other goodies.

We are also planning some special screenings in cities across the country so subscribe and stay tuned for more incredible stories and rare archival footage of some of todays greats. Thanks so much for all your support,

In this round of out takes Futura talks about the Graffiti 1980 Project that Sam Esses funded in 1980. This unique collective produced a stunning body of works that currently resides in the permanent collection of the Corcoran Museum of Art. Photos provided by Raphael Paquera.

Super8 footage shot in December 2009 and January 2010 at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art for three days of installation and a night at the opening reception. Kodak Vision3 500 stock with Beaulieu 4008.

Our friend Porous Walker has been keeping it busy this year. Providing a much needed joy and kindness to contemporary art Porous continues to make people smile worldwide. Having devoted more time then ever this year to his artistic endeavors Porous has recently had a number shows, including this wonderful group show he was a part of alongside Mark Inglis Taylor at Hatch Gallery in San Francisco, CA…

..and this great contribution to Park Life’s group exhibition Bro Palace.

In another set of out-takes from Porous Walker we see some of the funnier moments caught on tape while filming with Jimmy. Whether it be licking Jay Howell during an interview, chiming in on his collaborative work with his wife, asking Jay Fin if his car comes with chocolate, or predicting a mavericks of diarrhea, Jimmy keeps us laughing and we hope he does the same for you.

Just a few of the many choice out-takes of the time spent with Jimmy. In this set of out-takes we hear how other painters react to Jimmy’s art, how he got started sending art packages to Andy Jenkins and Bob Kronbauer, and who the one artist he would most like to emulate.

Megan Whitmarsh has been creating some incredible work lately. Just last year at her solo show in Krets Gallery in Malmö, Sweden, she unveiled 11 new sewn canvas’ and installed an incredible geometric installation creeping out from the corner of the room.

More recently Megan was invited to install some work in the Florida International University’s Wolfsonian Museum during the Art Basel festival. She recreated some of the artifacts in the museum’s vast collection of items dating from 1885-1945, as well as adding some of her own inspirations.

Megan had some great moments that just couldn’t find a place in the feature cut. In this first round of out-takes Megan talks about her desire to only use recycled materials, her plans for a Gold Chain Mountain, and her belief on why minimalism fails.

Some of the best moments end up not making the cut. In this first round of out-takes Mark talks about his childhood communion with cartoons, how he got by as an artist in New York, and the painter he admired the most as a young student.

Mark Dean Veca’s Phantasmagoria exhibit traveled and morphed into three shows down North America. After this showing at Otis College in Los Angeles Mark reinterpreted the work for an installation entitled “Bride of Phantasmagoria” at a retrospective of his work in San Diego at the UCSD University Art Gallery. That following December Mark traveled down to Guadalajara, Mexico to install “Revenge of Phantasmagoria” at the Instituto Cultural de Cabañas next to the stunning murals of Mexican legend José Clemente Orozco, during the FIL Bookfair. Below is coverage of this epic masterwork’s creep down the continent.

“Phantasmoagoria” at Otis College of Art and Design in Los Angeles, CA

Filmed a lot with Kelsey and some incredible moments ended up on the cutting room floor. In this first round of out-takes Kelsey’s mother Rebbeca talks about the moments leading up to Kelsey’s birth, and Kelsey talks about his first wave and how he knows when a painting is finished.